Daily Times

Mariah Carey said she was “mortified” by her disastrous performance on Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve in an interview with Entertainment Weekly.

Carey’s appearance was marred by technical difficulties as the singer notably went along with her planned choreography but made little effort to sing during her six-minute set. Instead, she often spoke directly to the crowd about the ongoing sound issues.

“All I can say is Dick Clark was an incredible person and I was lucky enough to work with him when I first started in the music business,” Carey said. “I’m of the opinion that Dick Clark would not have let an artist go through that and he would have been as mortified as I was in real time.”

Carey’s performance went viral after airing live on the East Coast and remained unedited on New Year’s Rockin’ Eve’s West Coast broadcast, despite protests from the singer’s manager, Stella Bulochnikov. Bulochnikov also blamed Dick Clark Productions for continuing the performance even though Carey’s in-ear monitors weren’t working before she took the stage.

Dick Clark Productions denied any wrongdoing and pushed back against a separate accusation levelled by Carey’s representative, Nicole Perna, who issued a statement saying the company “set Carey up to fail”.

DCP replied, “To suggest that DCP would ever intentionally compromise the success of any artist is defamatory, outrageous and frankly absurd. In very rare instances there are of course technical errors that can occur with live television, however, an initial investigation has indicated that DCP had no involvement in the challenges associated with Carey’s New Year’s Eve performance.”

Despite the snafu, Carey said the performance would not deter her from doing live TV in the future, but noted she’d proceed with more caution. “It’s not going to stop me from doing a live event in the future,” she said. “But it will make me less trusting of using anyone outside of my own team.”

The singer also thanked her fans, saying, “I am so appreciative of them and everybody in the media that came out to support me after the fact because it really was an incredible holiday season that turned into a horrible New Year’s Eve.”

Prior to her interview with EW, Carey tweeted about the New Year’s Eve incident, joking, “S*it happens. Have a happy and healthy new year everybody! Here’s to making more headlines in 2017.”